You can make the Hive bodies from Plywood. The frames are about 75 cents each 10 to A body and Wax is A buck A sheet. But you can get by with starter stips. You might want to check on A few nucs or A set of frames with brood and let them to make A queen.As Pkg bees are not cheap.

Prices I have seen in Bee Culture are about $60.00 on
average. Garners, Spell Bee has them listed for $55.00 this last issue. I know I wouldn't wait much longer to place an order. I am more than happy with the two packages we bought from them last spring. They built up so fast we put honey supers on them by the end of June. They still swarmed.